The blurb for the new book by cultural journalist and writer Elke Schmitter says “This book is an imposition – like love itself” – and it’s true. What does the author expect of her readers? The entirety of her knowledge about love in one book. In her case it comes from her own experience and from theory, the scientific study of the phenomenon. And Schmitter causes the two to collide. The psychoanalytic, philosophical or sociological knowledge (sometimes laid out in page-long footnotes) comments on the sketched scenes of love that are to be thought about. The book, Schmitter’s fifth novel, is reminiscent of Roland Barthes’ “Fragments of a Language of Love”. So reading it requires some perseverance. But the effort is worth it not only because of Schmitter’s many original and subtle thoughts, but also because of the poetic and precise language.